This Heart of Mine (5 page)

“We shall,” I said as we walked into the dance.

Everyone stopped to look at us. We must have been either completely disheveled from our race or simply glowing. Whatever it was, the dance floor cleared and we began to twirl around. I felt as if I were flying. Safe in the arms of the handsomest, funniest man there.

Levi soon showed up with a simply adorable little blonde girl on his arm. When he saw us, his eyes lit up. “Look! I made it. I bet I surprised the hell out of both of you!”

At sixteen Levi was already out of school and working. And he always thought dances and the like were silly affairs. I agreed with him, mostly.

Levi enjoys being an outsider. But that night he was simply beaming.

“Who is this lovely lady?” I asked him, holding out my hand to his date.

“This is Rosalind. The cutest girl around.”

I kicked him playfully. “The cutest, huh?”

“Ouch!” he said through a pinched smile.

“Nice to meet ya,” Rosalind said with a pout on her rosebud lips.

Robert shook her hand, and then in a grand gesture he pulled out his flask.

All four of us laughed and Levi shouted, “Bravo!”

Robert took us out onto the balcony overlooking the sea and poured too much whiskey into all of our punch. We drank a toast to summer and then all went to dance.

I don’t recall exactly when the liquor hit me, but it hit hard. And there was Robert, his arms tight around my waist, whispering into my ear. Those whispers spoke to places in my body I never even knew existed. “Let’s go outside. It’s hot in here,” I said.

We went around the side of the building and Robert leaned me gently up against the wall for support because drunken Glory was
drunk
. That’s when it happened. He kissed me. And I fell in love.

I didn’t want to just kiss. I wanted everything. Things I didn’t even understand.

Soon we heard laughter and I saw Levi come around the corner with Rosalind. I supposed they’d had the same idea.

The smile fell from his face like a hand dropping a hot coal. His hand let go of Rosalind’s.

“What’s going on here?” he said.

Robert held me at his side and laughed. “Come on, Levi! You know what’s going on. You had the same idea. And I have to admit, you got yourself a cute one.”

At that point Rosalind leaned over and vomited into a bush. Levi walked away.

Robert sat on a curb and scratched his head. I sat down next to him, sober.

“Do you suppose he likes you?” asked Robert.

“Of course he likes me.”

“No, I mean...likes you like a guy likes a girl.”

“I don’t think so. He’s probably just mad at you. My mother always says, ‘Men are like peacocks, proud and pretty. Don’t ruffle them.’”

“Maybe you’re right,” he said, brightening. And then he tried to kiss me again.

“No, sir,” I said.

“Why? Don’t you like me?”

“Yes. And that’s exactly why. I’m no floozy.”

“Okay,” he said. “But will you be my girl? My own Ladygirl?”

“I already am,” I said.

It was a lovely, perfect night. The most perfect I’d had...until tonight.

All this writing is making my hand hurt. But I want to make sure I have every single thing written down. All the memories. The entire scene, so I can share it someday with our children. Our children!

So, when I’d finished putting on my dress, I went out to the porch, where Robert, all grown up, had lit what looked like a thousand candles.

“Do you think heaven knows an angel’s missing?” he said.

“It’s a little big,” I said, playing with the skirt of the dress. His compliment made my heart beat so fast I thought it would pop right out of my chest.

“No. It’s just...you. You are so beautiful, Glory. I swear, when you smile you could put out the stars.”

I wanted to laugh or say something silly but felt the importance of the situation even before I knew what was going to happen.

He held out his hand and I took it. He sat me down in a chair. Then he was down on one knee.

“Ladygirl? Glory?” he asked.

“What are you doing, Robert?”

“Glory Astor, you know how much I love your curiosity and your questions, but for once in your life, can you just sit quiet? This time I need to ask
you
a question. The most important question I will ever ask.” He cleared his throat. At this point I knew what was coming, but I could never have imagined the way it came: “Glory, you know I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember, right?”

I nodded my head, but my whole body was starting to shake with excitement.

“And even before I knew what love was, it was always you. You were—you are—my very best friend. For always. And then when I got older and I knew what love was, the love between a man and a woman, there was never a moment when I didn’t know that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to grow old with you. And I want to have babies. Lots of babies. And when they grow up, I want to tell them all about you. About you when you were a little girl yourself. I want to tell them how brave you were, swinging from trees and riding on the back of my bike. How you could beat me and Levi swimming across the cove. I want them to know that their mother was everything to me from the first day I met her. And I want them to be just like you. So, here it goes....”

He took in a deep breath. “Gloria Astor, would you do me the honor of spending the rest of your life with me? For better or worse? Forever? Marry me, Glory.”

He took a ring out of his pocket. A beautiful ring. My mother’s ring.

I looked straight into his eyes. There were tears forming there. I’d never seen him cry. He’s like me that way—neither of us cry. The night air around us stood still and I felt for a moment as if I was floating above both of us, watching myself look down upon Robert bended on one knee, both of us trapped in the most wonderful pose imaginable. I’d always known he would ask me someday, but knowing something and having it actually happen are two very different things. I wanted to scream “Yes!” at the top of my lungs, but then a thought occurred to me. Father always said I think too much, that I need to simply let things happen. But I was worried. Was Robert proposing because he couldn’t wait one more second until we were wed? Or was he trying to protect me?

“Tell me you are asking me because of all those wonderful things you just said, and not because you feel you need to save me,” I said.

He got up and pulled me up with him into a tight embrace.

“Hush, Glory. I love every single bit of you. I always have and you know it. I love you when you’re strong, and even when you’re weak. I’ve loved you for my whole life and now? Now is the right time. See...someday we might be asked to fight in this war, and I won’t be able to be brave if I don’t know you are by my side forever. We’re not kids anymore. And I love you like no other could ever love you. Maybe even more than any man ever loved a woman on this earth. Please say yes.”

I do believe that there has never been, nor will there ever be, a proposal as romantic. I’m such a lucky girl. So of course I said “Yes!”

And then he picked me up, took my feet right off the ground and swung me around. He was laughing and I was, too. It was glorious.

“There’s something else,” Robert said, placing me back on my feet.

“What? What else could there be? It’s already perfect. How did you get the ring, by the way?”

“Your mother gave it to me after your father died. She always knew how much I loved you.”

“Mother would be so pleased. I hope she’s watching from heaven.”

“Of course she is,” he said. “Wait a second. My next surprise is in the car.”

He dashed off to his car and was back in less than a few seconds holding a bound scrapbook.

“I was thinking about our honeymoon,” he said.

“I bet you were,” I said, smiling widely at him. We’d been dancing around the thoughts of what married people do in private since we were sixteen.

“Hush. Look at this.” He handed me the scrapbook and I opened to the first page.

It said, “I give you, Gloria Astor Whitehall, the gift of...” I turned the page.

“CALIFORNIA!”

And on the pages there were photographs of a lovely little cottage on the Pacific Ocean.

“Oh, Robert, so far?” I was just getting used to being comfortable in Rockport and was a little worried about going all the way across the country.

“Just keep looking,” he said. He was so full of excitement that I couldn’t help but get a little excited, too.

On the following pages there were more photographs of the house he intended to rent, a house much like this one, smallish, by the ocean. Beautiful gardens. Simply lovely.

“I knew you’d never want to go to some resort or fancy place. And we can’t go to Europe. But I thought you might like this small bungalow by the sea. Do you?”

“You planned this so far in advance,” I said. “Getting the photographs, putting all of this together.”

“I love you. I just wanted to show you how much.”

“And you were sure I’d say yes?” I teased.

“Of course! Well...no. But I hoped.”

I leaned in and gave him a kiss. A kiss that both of us felt to our toes.

“If I don’t leave now, I’ll never leave,” he said.

“Then stay,” I whispered. “No one will know.”

“Oh, Ladygirl. It’s a grand idea. But let’s do this right. We’ll get hitched soon, and then off to Californ-I-A. Where I believe they have beds.”

We laughed again and then kissed all the way back to his car.

“You’ve made me so happy,” I said.

“Not half as happy as you have always made me.”

And so I’m ENGAGED! Soon to be Mrs. Whitehall. I’m still a bit in shock. But it’s a happy sort of shock.

All I really want to do right now is dance and celebrate. Right here in my yard, under the big bright full moon. I want to dance like when I was little and would dance with Robert and Levi in the shadows of my parents’ parties. Barefoot and laughing. I wonder, is there still room for dancing like children, for twisting and twirling, in this grown-up world?

Also, I just thought of something. Did Robert already tell Levi?

July 5, 1940

I woke up today an engaged woman! I let the sun fall over my fingers and moved my hand back and forth to see the rainbows on the walls. How did I ever manage to get so lucky?

I wish I could tell Mother the news. She’d be delighted and we’d do all sorts of shopping for my hope chest. Do I have one, I wonder? I’ll have to check the boxes. I’d also like to find her wedding gown. It would be old-fashioned, but who cares?

I do miss her....

Not until my father died and she was so ill did our relationship blossom into anything close to a mother-daughter relationship. Those months were difficult, but I felt that I’d gotten to know her for the first time. I suppose that is why I felt her loss so deeply. But no matter—I treasure those memories anyway.

Oh, here they come! I love the fact that every day, without fail, Robert and Levi still visit me...like silly playmates. They play football and baseball in the yard. They sit on my porch for hours playing cards. Those troublesome, loud boys. They’ll want to swim today; it’s hot. But I’d really like to finally finish unpacking. Especially now, as this is to be our home together once we are married. Who wants a home full of boxes of sad memories? They’ll just have to swim by themselves today.

July 6, 1940

Really, why must everything get so complicated
just
after it’s been settled?

Yesterday after the boys left, Robert came back to say goodbye to me, but he was in a hurry to get to his mother’s home in Beverly. Something about planning an engagement dinner. I didn’t even think to ask if he’d told Levi about us. I suppose I assumed he had, and I assumed correctly.

This morning I woke early, wrapped my shawl around me and stared at my ring, feeling a quiet happiness stirring in my soul, a warmth I hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Robert makes me happy. He makes me feel safe and loved. And mother would smile down from heaven, as she’d always wanted me to marry him.

I smelled coffee brewing already as I made my way down the stairs and thought perhaps Marie had come to make an early breakfast, or even Robert, to celebrate. But it was Levi who was standing in my kitchen.

It isn’t at all rare for Levi to be in my house, but it is rare for him to be there without Robert.

“Good morning,” I said.

He just looked at me. Something was wrong; I could feel it.

“Is everything okay?” I asked, knowing it wasn’t. But I didn’t know what to do. “Do you want me to fix your coffee and maybe make some toast?” I fumbled with the teapot.

“You’ve said yes?” he asked, and the way he said it let me know he wasn’t there to congratulate me.

“Of course I said yes. Robert and I have always had this in store for us. You know that.”

He smiled then, but it was a lonesome smile, one I knew well. He’d grown that smile when we were eleven, after his mother, Lucy, had died.

I made toast then because I didn’t know what else to do, and we went outside on the porch to eat our breakfast.

“Can I ask you something?” said Levi.

“Anything,” I said.

“Did you ever get the letters I wrote to you when we were kids?”

“You know I did! I wrote back all the time. I teased you about the flowers.” Levi and Robert both used to send me gifts since we were little. Robert always gave me a journal on my birthday, and Levi would send me pressed flowers on or around Valentine’s Day. I’d always asked if they were meant to be valentines, and he’d always said no or simply never responded.

“No, not those. The letters you never answered. The ones I wrote when we were really small. After my mother died, after we... kissed.”

The kiss. I couldn’t believe he brought up the kiss. A chaste little kiss. One meant for children on the brink of adolescence.

We were eleven years old and Levi’s mother had just died. After she passed, Levi was in charge of himself, forced to grow up quickly. And I suppose he wanted to take me with him.

One lovely day at the beach, Levi asked if I would allow him to give me a present. He was so handsome even as a boy, his dark hair falling into his deep brown eyes. I said yes, of course. And to be honest, I was hoping he’d found a perfect sand dollar.